


Flufftober Day 11: Radiance

by GuyOfShy



Series: Locked Tomb fics [17]
Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Fluff, Flufftober, Flufftober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26951203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuyOfShy/pseuds/GuyOfShy
Summary: Prompt: RadianceGideon and Harrow celebrate their love and life together.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Series: Locked Tomb fics [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1937449
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23
Collections: Flufftober2020





	Flufftober Day 11: Radiance

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the beautiful song [“City of Lights”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-OJ8bs_heM) by The Musical Tapes.

The anniversary of the Emperor’s return: when life was celebrated in all its forms, in every shape and sound it took. Where Canaan Tower was erected in memoriam of the monumental miracle, where the most devout made pilgrimage to: none more so than the heirs to his nine houses.

The Ninth heir and her cavalier, matron of the night and its shadows, met under the tower’s frigid umbra with quiet reverence. They arrived at the hour, where they and everyone around them, those worshipping Canaan Tower, those walking the warmly lit streets, those sitting on the balconies, all lit and released their lanterns into the sky, and everything was illuminated around them. Every person alighted in a radiant glow, embers smoldering under the airborne fire.

While Gideon's gaze was cast into the night sky, Harrowhark swung her head all around them, suddenly surrounded by other, more ethereal lights. Flickering shapes of spirits dancing, mirages holding each other close, looking up at their own lights, looking at the lovers. The same way that Harrow found herself looking at Gideon, who glanced back down at her.

"Pretty, isn't it?" Gideon smiled upwards, none the wiser to the congregation of phantoms around them.

"You have no idea," Harrow whispered. "We're surrounded by spirits. Happy, healthy, pristine, untouched. More than I've ever seen."

"Sometimes I wish that I could see what you can."

"And most of the time I would tell you otherwise. But this is the exception."

"Show me," Gideon said.

"Show what?"

"What are they up to? Surely they're not just hovering there."

Harrow had to wonder if Gideon knew exactly what she was asking.

"No, no, they're-"

"That's no what I-"

"Listen." Harrow hushed her with a finger to her lips: a gesture that usually infuriated Gideon, though she allowed it this time. "No, they're not just standing there. They're holding each other close, like so," said Harrow, pulling Gideon closer, squeezing her hands. Harrow glanced at the crowd again and mimicked them, leaning her forehead to Gideon's shoulder. "They're warm. I can feel them."

"Think you might be picking up me," Gideon said, and Harrow just knew that she was grinning.

Harrow had always been skeptical of the tale told to her since her childhood, and here witnessed its truth in person so many years later, not only in unexpected awe but harboring a love she did not dare expect to conceive in her life. That the souls of those who worshipped Canaan Tower and the tenants of the man who was resurrected under it - the man who became God, the God who became man - would be immortalized forever.

_“How?”_ Harrow had asked her parents.

There was never tale of any formal ceremony. Never an honor granted to almighty necromancers or the most stalwart cavaliers; not even His legendary Lyctors. Never a mention of any necromancy involved at all. No rituals. No summonings. It just came to be.

And here Harrow came to be under Canaan Tower against all her expectations. She was not alone. She was not cold. She was not unfulfilled.

She was happy.

“So,” said Gideon, “that means the story is true, huh?”

“I suppose so,” murmured Harrow, her breath frosting.

“Well, that makes me feel a lot better.”

“Why is that?”

“Now I know that no matter what happens, we’ll never be alone. We’ll end up right back here, dancing every day and night for the rest of our… well.”

Gideon smirked her crooked smirk at Harrow then, who laughed. They came in shadowed garb and pious paints befitting the occasion, and in this moment it looked truly unnatural on Gideon’s adamant features. Harrow faced her, placed her arms around her, rose to her toes and pressed their cold lips together, leaving a cloud of frost between them where their breath lingered and longed for the other.

“I’m not one to hope, but I hope you’re right.”

“I am. You’ll see.”

“Let’s not wait to find out. We’re here now, Gideon - beloved - and that is enough for me.”

Gideon smiled; warmer than any and all of the lights around them, that made Harrow’s heart flutter higher than the lights soaring into night, into that infinite shadow above them. Up there, she could only conceive the tiny pins of stars as lanterns that simply continued floating. Hearts set into the sky that could no longer remain. Promises unbroken and love never-ending.


End file.
